With record heat waves globally and extreme flooding affecting Europe and China, now is a pivotal moment to interrogate the interplay of technology and the environment, including the role of artificial intelligence (AI).

What would it take to make AI "greener"? On the one hand, we first need to collectively recognize tangible costs to the creation and use of AI systems — that, in fact, can be quite large. GPT-3, a recent powerful language model by OpenAI, is estimated to have consumed enough energy in training to leave a carbon footprint equivalent to driving a car from Earth to the moon and back.

There are beneficial impacts that AI can have on our relationship to the environment, as well. A comprehensive study in 2020 assessed the potential impact of AI on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, encompassing societal, economic and environmental outcomes. The researchers found that AI could positively enable 93 percent of the environmental targets, including the creation of smart and low-carbon cities; Internet-of-Things devices and appliances that can modulate their consumption of electricity; better integration of renewable energy through smart grids; the identification of desertification trends via satellite imagery; and combating marine pollution.

Read the full article about green AI by Sarah Khatry, Edward Kwartler, Kay Firth-Butterfield, and Mark Caine at GreenBiz.